Is Evolution Intellectually Viable?

AhmadYour representaion of the evoltuionary scenario is too simplistic and your facts about proteins are plain wrong. Take it from a creationist who does protein engineering and follows the directed evoltuion literature.Nevertheless, your basic point of view is correct, evolutionists need to have just as much faith as deists (EDIT: I mean theist), if not more.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-05-2002]

^ Doesn't deists mean believers in God (deities)?And I believe in evolution too - just not the molecules to man extrapolation. I could be sitting next to you in a seminar on genomic evolution saying 'Amen collegue' and yet still be a YEC. Genomes have evolved.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-05-2002]

Fair enough Nos.I take your point. I checked it on dictionary.com so it's not just an E vs C definition.You're right I mean theist.My so-called cartoon version of evolution is the evoltuion supported by the data! Allelic substitutions, gene duplictions, deletions etc etc. Adaptaiton of genes to the environemtn. Sure. It's all fact.Did a functioning human genome arrive this way in the first place? That's not fact and I don't accept that sort of evolution as proven.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-05-2002]

See my edit of http://EvC Forum: Is Evolution Intellectually Viable? -->EvC Forum: Is Evolution Intellectually Viable? (a few posts ago).

^ We are claiming the genomes arrived all completed. They were not the same as they are now but they were complete and working (better). A genome for each kind.Does the data support this? Yes as per hundreds of discussion on this site. Does the data prove it? No.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-05-2002]

JohnThe mosiquito genome just came out. Have you read the Science paper? The mosquito has thousands of genes not in the fly and not in anything else.The data fully supports the genome per kind idea. You pick a genome and there are thousands of conserved housekeeping genes, and given the genomes we have so far, hundreds and thousands of kind-specific genes.

ItzpapalotlI would agree with you that genes track the environment by natural selction. But macroevoltuion of new gene families is simply an evoltuonary assumption that is extrapolated from allelic adaptation under natural selction. We can watch a bacterial phosphatase sequence morph according to environment - it is still always a phosphotase.The genomes contain species-specific and cellular-process-specific folds and gene families that are not allelic variaitons. You can propose that the new folds can arrive, and you might even find a few examples in the lab but there is very little evidence that this is how novelty arose. To go from fold to fold you may as well start with random DNA. Macroevoltuion is an unjustifiable extrapolation of well understood genomic plasticity.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-06-2002]

JohnThe mosquito and fly only have about 13,000 genes.60% are eseentially the same (allelic variants if you like).
20% have sub matches alnong their length (domains)
10% have a non-insect best-match
10% are completely unique from all of the sequencing in all of lifeTime will tell but much of this 10% may be genuinely species-specific (not necessarily at the species level per se).I have identified very clearly a way to attempt to identify kinds if we had the genomes.Most of my points transcend the definition of a kind anyway. All taxonomic levels down to something around the family levlel are distinguishable by protein families so you cannot argue allelic variation as a viable mechanism for the origin of new protein families.So don't get more caught up on kinds than even we are. Gene families are kingdom-specific, class-specific, order specific, family specific etc. Our prediciton is that somewhere along the line there will be no new families except as might be incorrectly suggested due to reletive losses. We do have a prediciton and it does not need an a priori definition of 'kind' to be sensible, discusable and usable. Of course it will become more useful in about 5 or 10 years.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-07-2002]

AhmadYou are basically correct. You are probably just overstating.It is probably overstating it to say that no protein could ever have been created randomly somewhere. 1 in 10,000 protein sequences fold, about 1 in a million will do something useful. Only one in a billion will do something you want it to do and the chances of getting more than one of these to do anything useful together is probably close to impossible even if the universe was filled with soup. So I agree with you but I prefer the way I put it.What evolutionists rely on is that some extremely simple form of life might be possible. We can't rule it out. But it is only their hope. And I agree that even that would probably be impossible.Your other statements about 'this evolved into that' are also basically true but your language is imprecise. Once one has a cell then evolution can proceed somewhat non-randomly due to selection processes. But it will basically juts fine-tune itself.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 11-07-2002]

JohnI disagree with your first point and agree with your second.Bird is quite right that the formation of peptides just haven't been seen in naturee or the lab without unrealistic setups. You all really are just living in a fantasyland on that issue.Your second point I agree with. The probability calcs give overly high estimats for the reason you outlined.

AndyaYou should also be careful about what scientific conclusions you come to.Interpretaitons vs facts are a mine-field in this debate.

AhmadIt is simply a matter of definition.However one of the other phrases for abiogenesis is 'chemical evolution' so it is primarily in E vs C debates that abiogenesis is not considered 'evolution'. It is simply a sophisticaed choice to not call it evolution.Of course abiogenesis is part of evolutionary theory!

AndyaEvery time you think that homology proves common descent or that peppered moths or Galapogas finches prove macroevolution it means that you, as others before you, have interpreted the data to a place you want it to go.

QuetzalOf course the orgin of all of the genes that arose in between bacteria and multicelluar organisms and between them and mammals or higher plants are part of even your definiton of evolution. But all you guys ever talk about is gene duplication and allelic variation! Nothing to do with novel protein families.We agree on all the fundamental aspects of evoltuion. It's just the critical aspects realted to the origin of genuine novelty which distinguish C vs E in which you have jumped the gun.